Great speech. Fiery. Strong. The new image: Obama as commander in chief. I think he's won this. I keep saying that he's already president, he is. The speech got better and better as it went along. The spiritual ending was a surprise and interesting, black gospel roots, Martin Luther King Jr. I liked the togetherness theme and the sense of grim biblical challenges. Jimmy Carter didn't know how to talk about such challenges, he does. More of a pol than Jimmy, more of a leader. Said Middle East once, threw the Israel steak on the grill. But the ending lifted us toward some unglimpsed organic future. I liked it, I have to think most Americans will nod their heads at the challenge, and see McCain as too puny for these times.
I watched with a contractor friend. He said, Where are the redneck musicians, where are the white football players? Not to reach my friend, who's committed: but to reach the undecided. He said his mother visited his aunt in the nursing home and the aunt said, If Obama gets in there will be tents on the White House lawn and graffiti on the walls. Like a NY subway car. That stuff's out there. I thought a lot of the imagery of the night played into the hands of the racists. Stevie Wonder. Will.I.am, whoever he is. They kept showing racial diversity in the crowd, even guys with turbans. I thought of the '92 Republican convention, in Houston, when the triumphal rightwing nuts were out of step with America. We are exulting today, progressives, lefties, because we're finally proud to be Americans (yes I admit it)… but how does that play? The speech got Obama past a lot of that multi-culti imagery, but my friend said he should have come out in a Nascar uniform and shaken up a quart of Bud and sprayed it. Maybe that's next…
